


Christmas in the City

by schweet_heart



Series: Starsky & Hutch Fic [1]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: Two years ago and Starsky would have been the first to point out to Dobey that they were too good for this kind of cakewalk. Two years ago and Hutch would already have known what Starsky was thinking, whether this prolonged silence was simply Starsky working something out in his own head or the prelude to something more serious.Strange how much can change in two years.





	Christmas in the City

**Author's Note:**

> IDK if anyone remembers me, but I used to write in this fandom under the same name, except without the underscore – oh, about 7 years ago. I found this in my drafts folder and figured I should post it, keep the old love alive. Enjoy!

 

 

Hutch has never considered Christmas carols as a viable form of torture before, but it's nearly midnight on Christmas Eve and he's beginning to think that one more chorus of _Silver Bells_ is all it will take for him to lose his mind. Starsky, beside him, taps out the rhythm on the steering wheel, his eyes straining through the rain-lashed windscreen for any sign of movement from the building across the street. As if any criminal in his right mind is going to do a deal in a rainstorm on Christmas Eve, but try telling that to Dobey.

 

Between the rain and Starsky's impromptu imitation of the Bay City choir, the Torino is filled with sound, and each collision between finger and steering wheel, raindrop and glass makes Hutch's already taut nerves jump and pull, like the strings of an overstretched guitar. He's on edge, aware of a pressure front building which has nothing to do with the stake-out or the weather. Starsky's hardly said a word all day, not even when Dobey handed them yet another assignment from the bottom of the pile. When Hutch's gaze sought his, expecting righteous indignation that their boss still insisted on treating him with kid gloves, Starsky had turned his head, his eyes sliding away like there was something going on in his brain he didn't want his partner to see. Two years ago and Starsky would have been the first to point out to Dobey that they were too good for this kind of cakewalk. Two years ago and Hutch would already have known what Starsky was thinking, whether this prolonged silence was simply Starsky working something out in his own head or the prelude to something more serious.

 

Strange how much can change in two years.

 

Suddenly restless, Hutch shifts in his seat and, reaching across, catches hold of Starsky's wrist on the downbeat. _It's Christmas_ time _in the_ ci _-ty_ , Starsky taps, before the clasp of Hutch's hand stops him. He turns his head abruptly as if he'd forgotten Hutch was even there.

 

“What? You see something?”

 

Hutch shakes his head, taking a good look at the strained face, the indrawn mouth. “Want some coffee?”

 

“Nah, I'm good.”

 

“Okay.” Hutch releases him, reaches for the thermos. Starsky watches while he pours, his eyes almost black, but at least he's not tapping anymore, and Hutch decides that subtlety is pointless when they're both this tired.

 

“Where did you go?” he asks.

 

“Go?”

 

“Just now. You looked like you were miles away.”

 

“Oh.” A shrug. “I was just thinkin'.”

 

“Yeah, I could hear you from over here.” There's a quick lift of his mouth that might have been a grin, then Starsky holds out a hand for the coffee. Hutch lets him take it without comment. It's a concession, of sorts: any small act of caring Hutch is allowed feels like a victory. “What about?”

 

“Stuff.”

 

“Stuff. Well, that's enlightening.”

 

Starsky laughs, his mouth open and soundless. The rain on the windscreen catches the light from the lamp across the street, refracting into thousands of orange splinters, the colours patterning his face like stained glass. He hands back the coffee, and doesn't say anything as Hutch turns it in his hands a few times like he's warming them, but really he's just trying to find the place where Starsky's lips have touched. It's stupid and childish and a poor substitute for the real thing, but it makes the bitter liquid taste sweeter – or so he lets himself believe.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks, finally. It's the only thing he can think of to say. “I mean, you'd tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn't you?”

 

“You ain't my mother, Hutch.” Which is true. “I ain't got any reason to keep secrets from you.” Which is less so.

 

“You keep secrets from your mother?” Hutch pretends to be surprised. “ _I_ don't keep secrets from your mother.”

 

“Yeah, but my mom can see through _you_ in a heartbeat.”

 

“Touché.”

 

They lapse into silence again, a considering silence, and Hutch feels nauseated, his eyes caught on the line of Starsky's neck as he turns back to look out the window.

 

“Hutch?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

“You just did.”

 

Starsky makes an impatient sound. “Something _else_.”

 

“Yeah, okay.” After all, why not? “Sure. Go ahead.”

 

“What would you say if I told you I don't wanna do this anymore?”

 

For a moment, Hutch just freezes. Some part of him knew that this was coming, he realises, but it still hurts, like landing on his back during a chase and having the wind knocked out of him.

 

“Well,” he says slowly. Carefully. They're always so goddamn careful, now. “I'd say that's understandable. After what you've been through, anyone would think it's time for a change.”

 

“I'm not saying I'm gonna– I mean, it's just...it's different. Now. I mean, _we're_ different.”

 

They _are_ different. Hutch can't deny it. He says bluntly:

 

“You want to leave the department?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“You want another partner?”

 

Starsky's breath catches. “I don't know.”

 

The way he says it, as if the very act of admitting it implicates him in some kind of crime, causes Hutch's throat to close up. He's thought about it, then. Of course he has. Starsky is not the type to bring things up without a reason.

 

“I don't mind,” he says. “If it's what you want.”

 

He waits for Starsky to call him on such a blatant lie, because surely it's obvious he would rather cut off his own arm than break up the partnership, but Starsky just smiles sadly, and Hutch turns back to face the house they're supposed to be watching, unable to bear the look in his eyes. The image kaleidoscopes in front of him, but he can't tell if it's the rain or the tears.

 

“Let's call it a night,” he says finally. The downpour isn't letting up, and the suspect obviously has no intention of making the drop. “He's not going anywhere.”

 

Starsky leans forward – he can feel it – and the engine rumbles into life.

 

“Neither am I,” he says softly. But it's a lie.

 

 

~⋆˚❅˚⋆~

 

 

They pull up outside of Hutch's place not long after, and Starsky leaves the engine idling, looking at Hutch, who looks back and wonders what he should say. He has a horrible feeling that if he doesn't come up with exactly the right thing, right now, Starsky will leave and never come back.

 

“Come in?” he asks, because it's traditional, to spend Christmas Eve together in whatever form, and because he doesn't want to be alone, although right now he feels just as alone when he's _with_ Starsky, which is both ironic and terrible.

 

To his relief, Starsky nods, switching off the Torino and vacating himself from the driver's seat with what seems like unnecessary haste. The air in the car is oppressive, but outside it's cool, and the rain beating down on their upturned faces is cleansing. Hutch leads the way up the steps and into the apartment, and he's shucking off his wet jacket and shaking out his hair when he feels Starsky's hands on his shoulders, turning him around so that they're face to face, only now Starsky doesn't look closed or sad or angry but _scared_ , like he doesn't know what the hell he's even doing, and he's close enough that Hutch can see the rain on his lashes.

 

“Starsk– ?”

 

“Where did we _go_?” Starsky asks plaintively, like Hutch ought to know the answer, and Hutch hears his own words from before like an echo. Starsky's curls are rumpled and damp and his mouth turned down, an expression at once so familiar and so alien to Hutch that all at once loss hits him like a sucker-punch. One step and he's stumbling over his own feet and down, bringing Starsky with him, because he's forgotten to let go of Hutch's shirt, the arc of his back like the curve of dominoes falling.

 

There is a sensation, not of tripping but of landing, which comes to him as if from a great distance. They're tangled up in each other, Hutch sitting half upright and Starsky sprawled against him, getting rainwater on the carpet and not caring, the hall still dark. “Don't,” Hutch finds himself saying, nonsensically. “Don't, please don't.”

 

“I ain't doing anything,” Starsky denies, shaking his head. Except he is, he's pulling away, trying to get back to his feet, and Hutch feels something tearing loose in his chest along with him, like the final support giving way. He takes a deep breath.

 

“Don't go,” he says clearly. “I don't want you to go.”

 

Starsky grows still, quiet, poised in the act of rising. Hutch looks up at him, fearless now that the words are out, the ache in his throat making it too painful for him to speak but wanting to convey it all anyway, the loneliness and grief. The way Gunther changed everything in ways he didn't want changed, and he's still trying to find his way back, to a place safe and familiar. To Starsky.

 

“I told you, I haven't made up my mind to go yet,” Starsky is saying, but the words are irrelevant and careless, as if he is paying no attention to what he's saying. Instead, his eyes are fixed on Hutch's with a peculiar half-squint, as if straining to make out a figure in the distance that he isn't sure is one of his friends or just someone who looks vaguely like them. “I don't know what I'm gonna do.”

 

Instead of answering, Hutch just reaches up and draws Starsky back to the floor, and his partner kneels on the ground in front of him, complacent, unable to look away. “Don't go,” he repeats, touching Starsky's cheek. “Please.”

 

Starsky draws a shuddering breath.

 

“Why not?” he asks. “What've I got to stay for, Hutch?”

 

 _Me_ , Hutch thinks. He doesn't say it – doesn't say anything, just shakes his head. _I can't tell you that, Starsky. You've got to decide for yourself_.

 

Starsky seems to understand him, as he always does, even now, and sighs, breaking Hutch's gaze at last.

 

“I don't know what's happened to us, these last coupla years,” he says, looking down and away, into the past. “I know things were rough for a while before I got shot, but I thought we were coming out of it. I don't know what I did but I swear I'm sorry. I just...I can't take it anymore. It ain't me-and-thee anymore, Hutch, it's you and me and half the time it ain't even us.”

 

It isn't a very coherent speech, but somehow Hutch knows what he means anyway. When they are together these days, it's just the same as being apart. He still feels as if he is waiting for Starsky to come home from the hospital, like he's never stopped being lost and angry and he's only just realising how much things have changed.

 

“You didn't do anything,” he says quietly. “It wasn't anything you did, babe. I promise. It's me. Whatever's going on with us, I think- ”

  

"Hutch– "

 

“No, let me say it.” Hutch stops him with a hand to his lips. “It's not that- I don't mean that I'm– I don't know what I mean. I just find it so hard to be with you anymore. It's like everything's all tangled up in my head - Gunther and Kira and...you.”

 

Starsky digests this, silenced by Hutch's words more than his hand, gulping in air as he tries to regain equilibrium. His mouth beneath Hutch's fingers is soft and dry, moving wordlessly as if in echo.

 

“So that's it, huh?” Starsky says at last. “Can't live with me, can't live without me?”

 

“I guess." He lets his hand fall away from Starsky's mouth. “I hate to admit it, but I think Gunther broke me, partner.”

 

“Not broke,” Starsky says. He is, to Hutch's surprise, smiling slightly as he reaches out to stroke his partner's hair, the first time he's done that since Hutch can remember. “Just dented a little.”

 

“You don't understand. Whenever I'm with you...it hurts.”

 

“Where does it hurt?”

 

Hutch taps his chest, just below his collarbone. “There.”

 

Starsky brushes the skin with his fingertips; leans in to kiss it. Somehow, Hutch is not surprised by this. Though the press of Starsky's lips above his heart is a foreign sensation, the warmth that swells behind his breastbone at the touch is not, and he closes his eyes, unable to believe that this is real, that he can really have this, if he just reaches out for it. Starsky's breath tickles his clavicle, a soft huff like he's laughing.

 

“That better?” he asks, and there's a smile in it.

 

“Yeah,” Hutch says, smiling back. “That's better.”

 

When Hutch looks at him again, Starsky is watching him patiently, his blue eyes fixed on Hutch's face. He tucks a strand of blond hair behind his partner's ear and says idly,

 

“You remember that night, back at the Academy?”

 

Hutch doesn't have to ask which night he's talking about. It's one of his most precious memories, if he's honest, though he hardly ever thinks about it, keeping it tucked up in a box at the back of his mind as if afraid that taking it out to inspect too often would somehow tarnish it. Everything had been so new to them, then; they'd been convinced that they could somehow change the world, just the two of them together, and their relationship had sparked with a kind of electric intensity that had inevitably spilled over one night after one too many beers at the local bar. Hutch hadn't, in fact, been too drunk to control himself, and neither, he suspected, had Starsky – it had lowered their inhibitions enough that it had started something they had no interest in stopping, and in the morning they had agreed, quite calmly and professionally, to put it aside for the sake of their future careers.

 

Hutch remembers that night in excruciating detail, sometimes better than he really wants to.

 

“What about it?”

 

“You think maybe that's what this has all been about?”

 

Hutch frowns. Starsky's fingers are playing over his face, distracting him, smoothing the resulting crease between Hutch's eyebrows with his thumb. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean,” Starsky says, leaning in again and kissing him, on the lips this time. It's quick and sweet and somehow Hutch seems to stop breathing altogether, unable to do anything but watch as Starsky draws away again. “Maybe we made a mistake, deciding not to pursue it, you know?”

 

Hutch's heartbeat is racing, the blood pulsing in his veins. Starsky means it – he knows that all too well, but it seems unspeakably greedy, to not be satisfied with having his partner alive and well, to want more instead of being content with the distance between them. And maybe this is his fault, after all, for pushing Starsky away out of the fear that he couldn't keep him.

 

Experimentally, he reaches out and curls his hand into Starsky's shirt, drawing this partner closer so that their foreheads are leaning against one another. His nose rubs against Starsky's, then they're kissing again, and Starsky is letting him lead the way he so often does, letting Hutch set the direction their evening will take. Trusting him with so much more than just his life.

 

Hutch lays his other hand against the side of Starsky's face, cupping his cheek in his palm.

 

“You could be right,” he says quietly.

 

“Can I get that in writing?”

 

“Don't push it, Gordo.”

 

Starsky laughs. “Yeah, all right,” he says. “I just...wanted to let you know the option's open. If you wanna.”

 

“Do you want to?”

 

“Yeah.” Starsky looks almost shy. “I know I said we should agree to keep things strickly professional, but I was thinking maybe...” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe we could kinda-sorta renegotiate a little.”

 

“What do you mean, _kinda-sorta_?”

 

“Like maybe we could throw out the agreement altogether?” Starsky ducks his head, as if bracing himself for Hutch's rejection. “Only if you want to.”

 

Hutch wants to. _God_ , he wants to. But he forces himself to be practical. “What about work?”

 

“Well, obviously I was thinking we'd put a notice in the police bulletin,” Starsky said, rolling his eyes. “We won't _tell_ them, dummy.”

 

“That's not what I meant.”

 

“Then what did you – oh.” For a moment, Starsky is silent, but then he draws himself up and looks Hutch squarely in the face. “I don't wanna quit, Hutch. But I don't wanna be that guy, you know?”

 

“What guy?”

 

“The one that hangs onto his glory days by the skin of his teeth, even when he knows it's over.” He looks up at Hutch with wide eyes, guilt and fear written all over his face. “Is it over, Hutch?”

 

Maybe he's talking about his career, maybe their partnership, maybe both – Hutch doesn't know. He pulls Starsky in for a one-armed hug, burying his face in the other man's shoulder. “Not just yet, babe,” he murmurs, vowing to find some way to make it true. "Not just yet." 

 

Starsky lets out a shuddering breath and relaxes against him, and they're quiet, breathing, pressed together like it's the first time they've seen each other in a long time. Maybe it is. 


End file.
